Deafblindness

From ArticleWorld

Deafblindness gives people a very different living experience compared to those who are only deaf or only blind. Deafblindness brought a complete culture, just like the Deaf culture, with people who do not consider them to be medically suffering, just having different values, ways to communicate and different needs.

Causes

There are many possible causes of deafblindness. At the moment, they are about 70, but the list is expanding. The causes can be acquired or congenital, depending on when the condition began.

Most of the people acquire the condition during their lifetime, having normal or at least usable hearing and sight at their birth. Due to an injury or illness, they become blind and deaf. In some cases, people who have been born with one condition acquire the other during their lifetime. In this case, the condition of deafblindness is said to be acquired.

Some children may be born both deaf and blind, a condition called congenital deafblindness. This has various causes, including prenatal infections, genetic disorders like the Down syndrome or heavy use of alcohol or drugs by the mother during pregnancy. A special case is the Usher syndrome: due to a genetic disorder, the child is born either completely deaf or with major hearing difficulties. During the lifetime, the person loses his sight gradually, leading to complete blindness in late childhood due to retinits pigmentosa.

Means of communication

People with complete loss of hearing and sight have major difficulties in communication. The preferred communication method depends on how the condition installed. People who were born deaf and lost their vision gradually generally used the tactile deaf sign language, while those who were born blind and lost their hearing during lifetime prefer the tactile version of their mother tongue.

Sign language interpreters are available to them, but some people can be helped with devices like hearing aids, since some residual hearing or sight does exist.